I’m sure all of you are familiar with that
feeling you get when you hear a classic piece of music from a game you grew up with and
you’re suddenly flooded with an array of emotions. It almost seems like with one track the entire
experience flashes before your eyes. You remember the room you used to sit in when
you played it, the friends you had at the time, the excitement you felt as you put the
cartridge or disc in the console not knowing what you were in for, and how you were moved
while witnessing the story’s most impactful moments for the first time. Suikoden isn’t even a game I grew up with. I played it for the first time ten or so years
ago in my early twenties, yet when I hear certain tracks from the OST I get that feeling…
almost as if I had played it when I was nine years old. It’s a game that accomplished something
truly rare, a special combination of brilliance that is almost impossible to describe, where
every aspect of the game comes together and compliments each other in just the right way—that
inexplicable it factor. In a time where Nintendo had dominated the
JRPG landscape for years with the SNES, RPG developers looking to transition from the
4th to the 5th console generation had some tough decisions to make. Nintendo decided they would stick with a rom
cartridge architecture on their upcoming Ultra 64, which would place harsh limits on expansive
RPGs and make them more expensive to produce. For this reason, many third party developers
moved away from Nintendo to release their games on Sony’s disc based Playstation,
and Suikoden was one of the very first to be seen on that soon to be legendary console—especially
when it comes to its library of amazing RPGs. However, the Playstation actually wasn’t
part of Konami’s plans in the beginning. In 1994 Konami was in early development on
a gaming machine of their own. It was at this time that Yoshitaka Murayama,
the creator of Suikoden, was assigned to develop an rpg for this secret console. According to him, the original plan was for
a home console type machine with card reader functionality, allowing players to exchange
data. However, that plan soon changed to a portable
type with 3D (polygon) functionality—basically a gameboy with 3D graphics. Murayama was involved with two of three games
being developed for this system—the aforementioned RPG as well as a fighting game. The third project was a racing game, but all
three were cancelled early in development. “The fighting game had about two characters
that could be operated to a degree, and the RPG had a playable opening. Since the racing game was being done by another
team, my recollection is a bit vague, but I think it was about 20% along in development. None of those titles went on to completion,
but the name of the hero’s best friend in the RPG I was working on was later reused
in Suikoden. That name was ‘Ted’.” It seems as soon as Konami caught wind of
the Playstation, they decided it was wiser not to enter the crowded hardware market and
instead shifted focus to develop games for Sony’s console. Because they were now developing for a home
console rather than a portable, Murayama thought it best to scrap the RPG they had been working
on and make a game from the ground up with the Playstation in mind. “The RPG we were planning for Konami’s
game machine was designed for the purposes of a portable game machine, and had a strong
emphasis placed on the element of raising characters. More concretely, we had planned for many classes
and players were going to strengthen their characters through repeated class changes. But when we changed to planning for an RPG
on the Playstation, since we were designing for a home console, we decided to place a
greater emphasis on the game world and so we just decided to start over.” As he began drawing up concepts for this new
game, Murayama knew he wanted to create a large cast of strong supporting roles, being
inspired by manga he was reading where the characters outside of the main hero had lovable
personalities and unforgettable designs. These included stories like Captain Tsubasa,
Saint Seiya, and Dragon Ball. He also referenced the X-Men as an example
of the kind of diverse cast he was hoping to create. “I wanted to create a dramatic story with
many characters like that, so that during the game players could find the characters
they liked`that was the starting point for Suikoden.” When the concept was pitched to the executives
within Konami, the easiest way to describe what he was going for was to reference a classic
Chinese novel called Shui Hu Zhuan, which roughly translates to Outlaws Of The Marsh—also
known as Water Margin in English and Suikoden in Japanese. Water Margin is a story about 108 outlaws
who band together to resist the government, but are eventually granted amnesty and serve
the Song dynasty in their campaigns against rebels and foreign invaders. The higher ups at Konami loved the idea of
basing the game on this concept, which lead to the inclusion of the 108 stars of destiny
in the game. However, Murayama didn’t want the story
to stick too closely to the Chinese classic. “From an early age, I was a fan of old fables
like ‘Suikoden’ and ‘Romance of the Three Kingdoms’ (Sangokushi), and I was
strongly influenced by them to do a multi-character story. However, I decided that a pure Chinese style
worldview was not a good choice for a Japanese RPG with a major fantasy focus, and so it
became a half-fantasy and half-Chinese style worldview. For Suikoden I, I designed some story episodes
based to some degree on ‘Suikoden’ [the novel], but since Suikoden II was based on
the story of ‘Kouu and Ryuuhou’, it got rather far away from Suikoden.” In an interview with the Suikoden Revival
Movement facebook page, he provided more details on his inspirations for the story. “We originally didn't plan on the world
to be such a big mix of Eastern and Western culture. We wanted to differentiate Suikoden from other
RPGs, so we aimed at writing a drama around a large group of characters. This is why we used the story of The Water
Margin. However, an RPG that was purely based on Eastern
culture would sell well in Japan, but we would hardly call that good. So, we decided to add in some Western fantasy
elements… as far as the 27 True Runes and the whole battle of Chaos vs. Order is concerned,
Michael Moorcock's "The Eternal Champion" series was a big influence... The idea of the True Runes came from a card
game in Japan. In this game, you would attach Runes to your
monsters to give them special abilities in battle. Then, you could change the Runes in order
to change your monster's abilities. That was what I used for inspiration.” Upon this latest playthrough, one thing I
found interesting about Suikoden was the way that Murayama handled heavier subject matter. The story follows the Hero, whom the player
can rename but is officially known as Tir McDohl. Tir is the son of a great general of the Scarlet
Moon Empire, who is called away on a mission at the beginning of the game. In the meantime he leaves his son in the care
of his servants, who are tasked to protect him while he begins a military career of his
own. During the course of his first assignments,
Tir witnesses the corruption that has spread throughout the empire, originating with the
Emperor himself, and is forced to flee. Having been gifted one of the 27 true runes
by his friend Ted, who asks him to keep it safe from the empire, Tir is forced to forsake
his favored life and go into hiding. He later meets with the leaders of the Liberation
Army, who persuade him to join the resistance, and from there the player recruits those of
the 108 characters whom he or she can find, enlisting them to the rebels’ cause as they
seek to reform the country. It’s a straight forward scenario, but contains
a lot of good character subplots that add depth and context to this kind of wartime
storyline. Generally speaking, I prefer stories that
keep their plots accessible, but make the characters complex and layered, and while
Suikoden is definitely written with a younger audience in mind, it does a really good job
of introducing characters that can’t be painted with a single brush. There are very few characters, even among
the Empire’s ranks, who you could call truly evil. It was fascinating to me how content that
includes terrorism, chemical warfare, genocide, racism, and patricid—on top of other things
you would expect to see among the horrors of war—could be packaged in a way that is
completely appropriate for younger audiences, and presents a more nuanced view of morality
than is often found in other cartoons kids might be used to. I felt the distinct impression on this playthrough
that it would be a perfect introduction to the genre for kids or teenagers who have never
played this kind of game before, and decided that if I ever have kids, this would probably
be the first JRPG I’d have them play—if they cared to try it of course. Commenting on the nature of the subject matter,
and whether or not he ran into any resistance from management over what he should or shouldn’t
include, Murayma said the following: “Since the story was left up to me, I never directly
received any criticism. Since I myself decided to make the theme of
it ‘war’... I created a story that wouldn’t allow people
simply to close their eyes to the realities that exist in war... I did not intend to force my own personal
views on players. If players felt anything regarding such issues,
I’d like them to decide for themselves how they feel about them.” He elaborated on this a bit in his interview
with Suikoden Revival Movement by saying, “I drew up a vast array of characters of
varying sociopolitical backgrounds and creeds and fleshed out how they would each react
in this wartime situation, but anything beyond that is the player's interpretation. With so many factors and multi-faceted viewpoints
intertwining in a war, I find it impossible to simply label it all as good or evil.” There are probably some people who will make
the case that the story is too simple, that its writing is rudimentary, and that while
the war setting gives some potential for a more profound dive into how people deal with
loss and death, that in the end it lacks the depth to truly deliver on that potential. I didn’t see it that way myself. I actually found some parallels to classic
Disney or Pixar animated films, where it’s certainly written with a younger audience
in mind, but is also aware and mindful of the parents who take their kids to see those
movies. There’s a pretty big difference in tone
between, say, the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons and something like Mulan,
right? That’s more or less how I feel about Suikoden,
and the strength of its cast simply can’t be ignored. I feel pretty similarly about the gameplay
as well. On one hand, if you’re an experienced player
who has a lot of JRPGs under your belt, there’s really no denying how easy and simple Suikoden
is, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Throughout my playthrough I found myself wishing
it had been my first RPG, because it's perfect as an introduction to what the genre is all
about. I think it’s also important to look into
Murayama’s mindset when balancing the game to understand what he was going for. Ultimately, he wanted Suikoden to be a stress
free experience, and nothing demonstrates this better than how he managed encounter
rates. “In Suikoden, I was trying to focus on dramatically
reducing the player’s stress. As an example, for the enemy encounter determination,
it’s set up so that if you continue in one direction for a certain amount of time, the
chances of an enemy encounter go down. This is so that if you are heading for a certain
destination, it will be less likely that you encounter an enemy, but if you are wandering
around in order to level up, it will be easier for you to find an enemy.” When considering this, the design choices
make a lot more sense, and again it leads me to think that it’s a perfect starter
JRPG for people who have never played one before. It has pretty much everything you would expect—turn-based
combat, equipment and item management, weapon upgrading, shops, npcs, side quests, traditional
level progression—but also throws in a few unique ideas that help it to stand out. For example, since Suikoden is a wartime story,
they introduce this really clever minigame that is meant to simulate large scale battles. At the core, it’s basically just rock, paper,
scissors, where charge defeats bow, bow defeats magic, and magic defeats charge. However, depending on which characters you’ve
recruited you’ll also have a few extra options that give you a strategic advantage. For instance, ninja characters can sneak behind
enemy lines and report back to you on what the next plan of attack is, merchants can
sway enemies to defect and join your side, and tacticians can strengthen your melee units
so that your charges are more powerful. It’s a fairly simple but effective abstraction
that does a good job of giving the impression of large battles that are a necessary part
of the story, and I really liked them. One annoying thing about them though is that
there is a possibility that your characters can be permanently killed in these battles—battles
that largely hinge on guesswork and chance—and that’s never fun. However, I do like how you can have up to
six characters in your active party, three in the front row and three in the back. Each character fits into either short, medium,
or long range attackers which determines the enemy row they can hit. Short range attackers can only reach the row
directly in front of them, so if you put them in the back row they’re useless. Even when in the front though, they can’t
reach the back of the enemy formation. Medium attackers can hit enemies up to two
rows in front of them, allowing them to reach the front and back row of the enemy formation
when at the front, and the front row of the enemy formation when in the back. Long range allies, as is implied, can hit
any enemy no matter where they’re placed. It’s a pretty simple system but gives the
player some consideration when selecting characters for their active party. Magic only becomes available to your characters
after you’ve visited special shops to equip them with runes. Different runes provide different elemental
spells, and depending on the magic stat of the character who has the rune equipped, higher
level abilities become available. So while characters with a low magic stat
will only have access to the lower level abilities contained in the rune, characters with a high
magic stat will have access to the higher level abilities. There are also other runes that give your
characters really cool “limit break” style attacks, but come with a caveat where it leaves
them unbalanced and unable to attack during the next round. Others don’t have that penalty applied and
are just OP like Valeria’s falcon rune. There are also certain characters that can
unite their turns for special attacks, and a few of these, like Tir and Kai’s unite
ability, can be utilized to inflict major damage to all the enemies in a single turn. I also really appreciated the “Let Go”
and “Free Will” options in the command menu. If you come across a group of enemies that
are lower in level than your party, you can simply let them go with a 100% success rate,
allowing you to get through battles that you have no need to fight really quickly. In battles where the enemies are at an equal
level or above, this becomes the “Run” ability which doesn’t have a 100% success
rate. Free Will essentially allows your units to
attack on their own so that you don’t have to give individual commands to everyone. Both of these options allow you to get through
battles quickly in sections where you may be overleveled or simply don’t need to select
special abilities to get through a fight, and it really helps to keep the pace and flow
of the game engaging where other JRPGs might start to drag a bit. There are also certain parts of the story
where you’ll fight one on one battles. Like large scale battles, this minigame essentially
boils down to a rock, paper, scissors mechanic, but after each turn the enemy will give a
line of dialogue that subtly ques you in on what they might be doing next. Again, it’s a really simple addition, but
does a good job of building the sense of an epic one on one fight and gives these moments
that extra touch of flavor and impact. Perhaps the most beloved aspect of Suikoden,
however, is the recruiting of the 108 stars of destiny, which directly affects your base
of operations at castle Toran—a sort of combination of character collecting and base
building all in one. When you first enter the castle it’s empty
and run down, but as you recruit characters the place really livens up and shops and services
become available depending on who you’ve recruited. For instance, Marie—who ran an inn at the
game’s first town—will establish an inn at castle Toran when she’s recruited. Other characters will run shops that allow
you to equip runes or buy recovery items. Some will allow you to sharpen your weapons
or buy equipment, while others will give you the opportunity to store items and clear up
your inventory. Others still help you fast travel across the
world, or upgrade your boat so it can sail faster. So, while you may never use this massive list
of characters in your active party, many of the characters still feel like they have a
purpose and are useful to you, which I think is really impressive considering the fact
that other games with large casts like this can sometimes have trouble making the majority
of their characters feel memorable. It also helps that the character design and
art style do a phenomenal job providing individuality and strong personality to each character. These character portraits are some of the
best I’ve ever seen in a JRPG when it comes to that. The only real complaint I have with the game
is its inventory, which is severely limited and cumbersome. Even with six characters in the party you’ll
constantly find yourself lacking the space to store new items, and switching items between
characters is an unintuitive chore. This is because there isn’t a shared inventory,
rather each character has their own and can only hold up to nine items apiece. Even if that was the end of it I wouldn’t
think to much of it, but on top of this there are certain times where a character will leave
the party for a while and can take very important items with them. On this playthrough I made the mistake of
giving Viktor my blinking mirror, which allows you to fast travel back to Toran castle, and
when he left the party in the story he took the blinking mirror with him. I’m not the only person to have made this
mistake, and it really, REALLY sucks. Aside from that issue though, there isn’t
really anything else that I feel is necessary to criticize. It’s really solid overall. One thing that shocked me on this playthrough
though, especially considering the fact that I had played the game before, is how outstanding
the soundtrack is. It was composed by Miki Higashino—also not
a name you hear very often when talking about great video game composers. Her work includes games like Gradius, the
1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turles arcade game, Contra III, Vandal Hearts, as well as a collaboration
with Yasunori Mitsuda on a game called Tsukiyo ni Saraba. Growing up, Higashino was introduced to classical
music by her father, and was drawn in herself—where she developed a deep love and appreciation
for it. However, as is the case with so many of the
developers who worked on golden age JRPGs, Higashino found herself a bit lost while in
college, finding that the program she was enrolled in was focusing too much on music
that was antithetical to what she wanted to write, and so she took a part time job at
Konami as an opportunity to work on something she was actually passionate about. On Suikoden in particular, which Murayama
wanted to stand out from other popular RPGs, Higashino took a unique approach. “Suikoden is based on one of the most important
historical novels of Chinese literature. but the game’s towns, cities, and characters
span an entire world, with elements of all kinds of cultures, East and West. I realized that it couldn’t all be depicted
using a single genre of music. On top of that, the game was on a massive
scale, and there was no doubt that this world was unlike anything seen before in an RPG. So I decided to compose something completely
different from the music in a Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest.” The soundtrack definitely encapsulates that
expansive feel required for such a large world with different races and cultures, and has
the range to express the beauty, excitement, horror, defeat, triumph, and sadness that
the characters experience throughout the story. I was especially impressed with Higashino’s
use of leitmotif on the main theme, taking it from a bold and gallant statement, to a
soft and greatly sentimental expression. I often find that music is the essential component
that brings a scene together and really imprints the emotional impact on the audience. Tetsuya Takahashi shared a similar sentiment
when talking about his experience in creating Xenogears, where he felt a pressing fear that
the story was simply not conveying what he had hoped until Yasunori Mitsuda’s music
was put in place. I would say the same is true here. Without such a brilliant soundtrack from Higashino,
I’m not sure Suikoden would have been the same. There are many people I’ve spoken with who
consider Suikoden 1 a stepping stone to something much greater—the essential launching point
for the developers that provided the experience necessary to create a true masterpiece. For me though, the first game is something
equally cherished, an incredibly strong effort from a first time director who designed a
world and cast that was easy to fall in love with, and was also able to stand on its own
as a unique experience alongside juggernauts like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Is it on the easy side of the JRPG spectrum? Yes. Is it a bit simplistic in its writing and
storytelling? Sure. Does it fall into a few classic fantasy cliches? Definitely. None of these things managed to hold it down
though, and like so many classic Disney animated films—about which you might say similar
things—it stands the test of time and proves to be emotionally effective. I would easily consider Suikoden an amazing
game in its own right, even as something greater lay on the horizon for Murayama and his team
at Konami.
